You're My Muse
by spiralmonster
Summary: Destiel, AU, challenge!fic Castiel is a struggling author who starts jokingly working on a fairy tale about himself and his best friend. He's surprised when his editor finds the rough draft and loves it, but things may go south when Dean finds out he's the story's inspiration in more ways than one.


**A/N:** This is a challenge fic from Tumblr, where I asked for Supernatural prompts and received the suggestions 'Destiel AU', 'Destiel Fairy Tale AU', and 'Destiel AU with either writer!Cas or writer!Dean, or something to do with books'. So I combined them all into a Destiel AU where Cas is an author who is writing a fairy tale about himself and Dean! I hope you all enjoy. :)

There will be more chapters, though I'm not sure exactly how many yet.

* * *

Castiel Novak stared at the Microsoft Word document open on his computer screen, one of many, many documents that held various ideas for the latest novel he was writing. Castiel could come up with a setting, a plot, a strong male lead and even several supporting characters, but he always found himself stumped on the same detail: the hero's love interest, the female lead. The author buried his unshaven face in his palms. Paranormal love stories aimed toward heterosexual teenage girls were hard for a homosexual man in his thirties to write.

Castiel had published a handful of children's books under his pen name of Jimmy Novak, but none of them had gotten him the recognition he'd wanted when he decided to become an author. Now Castiel was trying to jump on the bandwagon of paranormal romance, but it wasn't working out very well for him. All of these stories were written from the point of view of a teenage girl in love with some supernatural being who, by some miracle, always loved her back. Castiel had no idea how to write like a teenage girl, and he found writing from the male lead's point of view to be even more difficult. Castiel couldn't find anything attractive about teenage girls when he was a teenage boy. Trying to come up with something attractive about a teenage girl when looking at her through the eyes of a centuries-old vampire was hardly easy.

With a sigh, Castiel closed out of the Word document - _No, I do not want to save changes_ - and shut down his computer. The man stood from his pristine work station and shuffled across the living room of his one-bedroom apartment, stopping in the kitchen for a glass of water before retreating to his bedroom for the night. He'd barely had time to change into his pajamas when his cell phone rang.

"Hey, Dean," he answered without checking the caller ID. His best friend, Dean Winchester, called him at the same time every night to see how the creative process was going. Dean and his brother Sam were the only people who knew Castiel was an author. He didn't keep in touch with his family, and as a grown man with no kids of his own, he wasn't too quick to admit to strangers that he wrote children's stories.

"You gave up already?" Dean asked, a slight tone of disappointment tinting his voice. Castiel sighed. Dean could always tell whether or not he was still working by how long he took to pick up the phone. "Come on, man! Books don't write themselves!"

"I know, I know," Castiel relented, sinking down to sit on the foot of his bed. He pinched the bridge of his nose with the thumb and forefinger of the hand that wasn't holding his phone. "I've got nothing, though. I'm completely out of my comfort zone on this. Not to mention every paranormal romance story imaginable has already been written."

Dean hummed softly before responding. "Well, maybe don't go the paranormal romance route after all? Maybe write something more along the lines of a fairy tale."

"A fairy tale?" Castiel asked incredulously, letting his hand fall from his face.

"Hell yeah, a fairy tale," Dean replied enthusiastically. "That's more your speed, you know? Prince meets damsel in distress, the whole nine yards. Throw in an evil witch or a big bad wolf for good measure and you've got your paranormal romance."

"Yeah, I'm sure my editor would love that," Castiel replied sarcastically.

"Hey, it's worth a thought. Snow White's on channel 52 if you need any inspiration. Just started." Dean laughed and Castiel jokingly promised he'd check into it, then the two hung up. Castiel tossed his phone onto his bedroom desk, which was covered with papers strewn haphazardly about and looked nothing like his 'official' work station in the living room.

For a few moments he simply sat, an unconscious smile tugging at his lips, touched by his friend's concern with his career. Although Dean didn't know it - and never would, if Castiel had his way - the author was more attracted to his best friend than he had ever been to anyone else. As a matter of fact Castiel had begun to think he was asexual before the day his car broke down along the interstate, and the closest thing to perfection he had ever seen stopped to help him out. Who would have known that, three years later, the two of them would be best friends?

Out of curiosity, Castiel grabbed the remote and flipped on the television, switching to channel 52. Sure enough he found an animated huntsman holding his dagger over a cowering Snow White. Castiel shook his head, wondering how on earth Dean knew Snow White was playing, but quickly dismissed the thought. He was about to turn the television back off and go to sleep, when he paused. Snow White was running, terrified, through the woods, every shadowy corner and jagged branch turning into something sinister. Castiel cocked his head to the side, wondering over how scary this seemed for a children's movie. The image suddenly popped into his mind of a forest that actually was filled with monsters and creatures lurking in the shadows, but instead of a lost princess scampering along he pictured Dean as a warrior prince, valiantly fighting off the darkness.

Castiel laughed to himself. _'I should write that,'_ he thought. _'It'd serve Dean right for suggesting a fairy tale.'_ Castiel threw a glance at his unkempt writing desk, considering. He'd always found writing cathartic, even long before he ever thought about having his work published, and it _had_ been a while since he'd actually written anything of substance.

"Oh, why the hell not," he said aloud, flipping the television off as he moved over to the desk and turned on the small lamp there. He found a stack of unused papers, and began to write.

-:-

_Everyone likes to think that they're important, that their life means something to the universe. Unfortunately, most people are wrong. This story, however, is the tale of one man who, despite thinking his life was just another insignificant passing, held the fate of the Earth in his hands._

_His name was Dean, and he was the heir of the kingdom of Winchester. Born a prince, Dean wanted nothing more than to be a knight, a warrior for his king rather than a spoilt royal who sat upon his throne and ate delicacies his subjects had never even heard of. His father, the King, refused to let him train any more than what was absolutely necessary to defend himself in the most dire of situations, when no guards could be immediately summoned. Fed up with his father's refusal to let him become a warrior, Prince Dean left his kingdom in hopes of training on his own._

_Little did Dean know, there were more threatening adversaries in his world than the armies of invading nations. The prince found that hundreds of creatures he thought only existed in stories meant to scare children into staying within village limits, actually walked among mankind. And not only did they exist, but when they found out he was outside of the range of his father's protection, they seemed to simultaneously decide that they wanted Dean's royal head on a platter. Dean had to, very quickly, become an expert in how to kill the monsters that legend said couldn't be killed_

_For seven years after he fled his kingdom Prince Dean fought, and studied, and hunted the creatures of the night before they had the chance to hunt him. Although no one who met him in that time knew his true heritage, Dean became widely known as one of the best and most feared monster slayers, or as they referred to themselves, hunters. His reputation grew to the point that some creatures began to disregard their orders to take him down, simply out of fear for their lives. This didn't stop Dean from hunting them, however. Anything that posed a threat to human life was on Dean's hit list. He traveled from kingdom to kingdom, sometimes with help from other hunters and sometimes without, and although he had his fair share of close encounters, Dean always managed to come out on top in the battle against evil. That is, until the day something came along that Dean had never heard of before._

_Not knowing what it was meant not knowing how to kill it, and that gave the creature, something Dean later came to learn was called a Leviathan, just enough of an upper hand to get the best of the warrior._

_Dean awoke, unsure of how long he'd been unconscious, to find himself in the middle of a thick forest. The types of trees that surrounded him were unfamiliar and menacing, thick branches overhead blocking out almost all sunlight. From his current position among the trees, Dean couldn't tell what time of day it was, or even whether it was day or night. His olive eyes scanned his surroundings quickly, picking out the nearest tree that seemed possible to climb. Dean picked himself up, dusted himself off, and started toward the tree. It had been a while since he'd had reason to climb a tree, but once he got started Dean made his way above the branch line quickly._

_What he found there, however, didn't help him. All Dean could see in any direction was pale black sky above and miles upon miles of trees below. With a furrowed brow, the hunter investigated the visible sky above him. There was no moon, no sun, not a single star to bee seen, and the longer Dean looked at it the more he came to realize that the blackness he saw wasn't indicative of nighttime, but was simply the color of the sky. The pale glow emitting from the sky itself rather than a specific point, such as a sun, led Dean to believe it was daytime. Still confused, but satisfied that this vantage point had provided him with all the information it could, Dean started making his way back down the limbs of the tree._

_When he reached the ground Dean froze, his hunter's instincts telling him the surrounding forest was a bit __too__ quiet mere seconds before the attack came. Wild dogs, a half dozen of them at least, simultaneously pounced at Dean from the shadows. He immediately dropped to the ground, rolling onto his back and bringing his thighs up against his chest, knees bent and feet together, the soles of his boots colliding with the chest of the first dog to reach him. The animal whined as it was thrown back, colliding with two others as Dean swiftly rolled out of the way and sprung to his feet. His right hand grasped at his thigh, only to find his sword holster empty. He cursed himself for not noticing the missing weight sooner, then experimentally shook his right leg. The dagger he kept strapped to his shin was also missing._

_"Damn," he swore aloud. He'd been stripped of all his weapons before being left in this strange place. The dogs were closing in on him now, baring their teeth as they growled, circling Dean like a fresh chunk of rare meat. Although he had no weapons Dean knew he could never outrun the animals, so he shifted his legs slightly further apart, planting his feet and raising his fists. The largest of the pack, the one directly in front of Dean, let out a round of barks that sounded almost like a laugh, then started to transform. Dean's eyes widened a hair, but he didn't flinch the slightest bit as the animal's fur receded until only its head was covered, its back straightened, its limbs grew longer, and its snout retracted._

_"Skinwalkers," Dean commented, recognizing the monsters that surrounded him. "I haven't seen any of you in years." What Dean assumed was the leader of the pack, the one who now appeared as a human man, gave Dean a malevolent smile._

_"That's because we've all been here," the creature said, raising his arms out at his sides and indicating the forest around them. His arms dropped as he continued, "Waiting. For you, Princess." He said the word mockingly, disdain clearly coloring his voice. Dean merely smirked._

_"Sorry, I'm not in the mood to be courted right now," he replied sarcastically. "But I wouldn't mind knowing exactly where 'here' is."_

_As Dean spoke the skinwalker's expression turned to a scowl, and the creature snarled out, "Here is where you die!" before lunging at Dean, transforming back into canine form mid-jump. Dean braced himself, preparing for the dog to collide with his fists, but the crash never came. Instead a blinding flash of white light erupted in the space between him and the attacking creature, and although he knew it was dangerous while surrounded by enemies Dean couldn't help but close his eyes to the light and reposition his arms to shield his face._

_Simultaneous whines of pain sounded from multiple positions around him, and when Dean's sight returned to him he swirled around quickly to find that all of the skinwalkers had been killed. Dean's eyes swiveled back to where the bright light had appeared in front of him, and he was shocked to see a familiar sight._

_"Jimmy!" Dean exclaimed, starting toward his old friend, the first hunter he met after leaving his kingdom. "I don't know how you got here but I sure am glad to-" Dean cut himself short as the man turned toward him and the pair locked eyes. This was Jimmy's body he saw in front of him, but whoever was staring Dean down at that moment definitely wasn't his friend._

_"I'm not Jimmy," the stranger confirmed. Even his voice was different, deeper and gruffer than Jimmy's._

_"Who are you, then?" Dean asked, taking a step back but not bothering to raise his fists again. Whoever - no, whatever - this was, it had killed over half a dozen skinwalkers with apparently nothing more than a flash of light. If it wanted him dead, he would be dead already._

_"My name is Castiel," came the reply. "I'm here to rescue you from the Dark Wood."_

_"Well thanks Castiel, but I don't need to be rescued. Now for the more important question: __what__ are you? And what are you doing in my friend's body?"_

_"Your friend Jimmy is your keeper, and my vessel. I am an angel of the Lord." Dean's eyes narrowed incredulously. In all his time spent hunting unnatural beings, the only place Dean had ever heard of angels was in the Bible._

_"So, what? I have a guardian angel all of a sudden?" Dean asked sarcastically. "Tell me what you really are and then get out of Jimmy!"_

_The creature, Castiel, furrowed his brow and tilted his head slightly. "There is nothing sudden about this, Your Highness. You have been monitored since your birth. I have personally watched over you since the day you ran away from home." He pursed his lips slightly before repeating, "I am an angel of the Lord."_

_Dean rolled his eyes. "Okay, let's just say I believe that you're an angel. What do you mean you've watched over me since the day I left home? Have you been possessing Jimmy all this time? Or is Jimmy even real?"_

_"Don't worry, your friendship with Jimmy was genuine," Castiel assured. "Though he was aware from the moment he met you that he was assigned by God to watch over you and keep you safe. He gladly gave me his consent to use his body to appear before you should you ever require Heaven's assistance." He took a few steps closer to Dean, who stepped back in unison with him. Castiel frowned. "Prince Dean, you need my help. This forest is shrouded by an ancient, dark spell, and is home to every abomination you've ever fought, plus a few even you have never heard of. One of which brought you here in the first place. No human can find their own way out of the Dark Wood once they have passed through its barrier."_

_"Don't call me Prince. I haven't been a prince in over half a decade," Dean scowled. He'd always hated being referred to as royalty, even before he left his kingdom. "Now before this conversation goes any further, you need to give me one good reason that I should believe you're an angel. I mean, demons possessing people, that's practically commonplace. But angels possessing people?" Dean paused, shaking his head and crossing his arms over his chest. "I've never heard of that. No hunter I know has ever mentioned a real case involving angels, not even Jimmy."_

_"Of course Jimmy wouldn't have mentioned it to you. He was bound to an oath of secrecy," Castiel replied, expression and tone showing that he'd thought that much was obvious. "We don't have time for me to stand here and explain to you the will of God. As for a reason for you to believe me, I only have one offer that I believe you will take seriously." Castiel stood up straighter, his shoulders rolling back and his gaze intensifying, dark blue eyes mesmerizing Dean for a few moments before he snapped out of it and realized... nothing was happening._

_"Well? What-" Dean cut himself short when he finally saw what exactly the stranger was showing him. A shifting of the shadows on the grass between them caught Dean's eye and he switched into a defensive stance, expecting more enemies, but he quickly realized the new shadows did not belong to new creatures. Startled eyes flicked up to confirm that nothing about Jimmy's body had changed, then trailed back down to the patterns expanding across the ground._

_Erupting from the shoulders of Jimmy's shadow was the easily recognizable silhouette of a pair of huge, feathery wings, extending nearly ten feet out on either side of the original shadow._

_"An angel's wings are almost entirely invisible when it takes a vessel. All except their shadow." Castiel relaxed his stance, and the shadows of his wings slowly receded. "What other creatures do you know of with wings, Dean?"_

_Dean stifled a sigh. "None," he admitted reluctantly, his own posture relaxing slightly as well. "So, guardian angel? How do we get out of here?"_

_"First of all, you'll need this." Suddenly a dagger had appeared in Castiel's hand and Dean was instinctively bringing up his arms to cover his vital organs, before he realized Castiel had his hand wrapped around the blade and was extending the handle toward Dean. Hesitantly, Dean reached out and took the knife, turning it over in his hands and examining it. The blade appeared to be pure silver and was serrated in uneven intervals, almost a design of some sort, engravings of some foreign language trailing along the length of the blade. "That blade can kill nearly any creature we will encounter in this forest," Castiel told him, drawing green eyes up to meet blue. "It is the only one I have, so make sure you don't lose it."_

_"Thanks," Dean said genuinely, although he highly doubted such a simple weapon could kill the kinds of monsters he hunted. Regardless, he knelt to the ground and rolled up his right pant leg, planning on securing the dagger against his shin where he usually kept his own._

_"I would keep that somewhere more accessible if I were you," Castiel said. Dean looked up at the angel, barely biting back a comment on knowing how to handle himself and his weapons. "The weapons you're used to are gone. From here on out I won't be able to smite creatures the way I did to those skinwalkers when I appeared, so that dagger is your only defense in this forest other than our hand to hand combat skills."_

_Dean's jaw clenched as he reluctantly rolled down his pant leg, straightened himself up, and slid the knife into the waist of his pants. "Better?" he asked._

_Castiel nodded. "Let's get going."_

-:-

Once Castiel started writing, he found it nearly impossible to stop. The man was shocked when he set down his pen, stretched his arms over his head as he leaned back in his seat, and caught sight of his alarm clock. It was nearly three in the morning.

"Shit!" he cursed, gathering up the papers he had been using and shoving them to the far corner of his desk, written upon sides facing down to ensure no one saw his or Dean's names. The author scrambled to turn out the light and dove into bed. His editor was coming to check in with him in only six hours to hear the ideas he'd been working on, and the only real progress he'd made was on a joke story about a monster hunter prince and his gay guardian angel. He was going to have a new one ripped in him if he didn't get some sleep and - more importantly - wake up early enough to bullshit a few more paranormal romance ideas before his editor arrived.

As he laid under his thin blankets and stared at the peeling paint upon his ceiling, trying to come up with publishable ideas, all Castiel could think of was himself and his best friend, in another time and place, making love on an enchanted forest floor.

-:-

"You really don't care about getting published at all, do you?"

"Yes, I do, I swear, it's just that I'm not used to-"

"Excuses!" Castiel's editor covered his face with his hands, sighing with exasperation and giving himself a few moments to calm down before continuing. "Look, Jimmy, you're one of my favorite clients. I like you, I really do, and I think you have potential. The problem is that you don't seem to care about whether or not you're able to break out of your shell of children's writing!"

"Please, a little more time. I have a few more ideas.." Castiel trailed off, hurrying into his bedroom and shuffling through his handwritten papers. Grabbing a few, he turned around to return to the living room, but found his editor already standing behind him, looking over the messy desk. "Oh!" Castiel jumped slightly before regaining his composure and turning his attention to the papers in his hands. "This one I really like, I just haven't had time to type it up yet. There's this couple in the mid 1800s, a young, newly married couple, and the wife has a biting fetish, and when she finally gets up the courage to ask her husband to bite her, he gets accused of being a vampire because of it. He's sentenced to death and nobody believes he isn't a vampire, and the night before he's supposed to be killed a real vampire shows up and offers to turn him so that he can survive the execution and run away with his wife after being declared dead. And he agrees but you see, when he goes to collect his wife and tell her he's survived he finds she's killed herself. So he has to run away on his own, and then, over 250 years later, in the present day, he meets a woman who looks exactly like his dead wife and-"

"Too much set up," the editor interrupts. "You would have to spend too much time telling the story of the past life and how he was created. Girls won't be reading for a 250 year old married couple, they'll be reading for a modern girl that they can relate to being seduced by an ageless creature." The editor rifled through the papers strewn across the desk, his voice apathetic as Castiel's shoulders slumped. He really had thought this idea was his best bet, and he had been a bit excited about it.

"Well, if the set up is the problem," Castiel began to amend his idea, "I could start it out with him meeting the girl in the present day, allude to her being a reincarnation of his lover in his own lifetime, and maybe build up to her asking him either how he became a vampire or why he was so taken with her, then have him tell the-"

"What is _this_?" the editor asked suddenly, and Castiel looked up from the papers in his hands to find the other man holding a stack of papers as well. Panicked, Castiel looked to the corner of the desk where he had shoved his and Dean's fairy tale story the previous night. Sure enough, the corner was cleared.

"That's nothing!" Castiel exclaimed quickly, trying to make a grab for the papers, but the editor dodged, flipping through the stack.

"No, Jimmy, I'm serious," the editor said, and Castiel could swear he heard awe tinting the other man's voice. "A prince who rebelled and became a monster hunter? And a guardian angel? This is one of the most interesting things I've read in a long time." He paused in his reading, looking up at the author. "Tell me about the love interest."

Castiel shifted uncomfortably. "The, uh.." He scratched the back of his neck, unsure how the editor would react to his idea. "The angel is the love interest."

"Risqué," the editor intoned. "How will that work?"

"Well, um," Castiel bit his bottom lip as the other man went back to skimming the beginning of the story. "Like I said, it's nothing. It's just something I wrote for fun, so I didn't put much thought into it. But I was thinking something along the lines of, although the angel is indifferent to sexuality, he feels he has a very strong bond with the prince because he's watched over him and kept him safe for so long, and the more he gets to know the prince personally the more he starts to care for him, and eventually start to question his orders not to get too close to his wards. Then there's the prince, who never wanted to be a prince, never wanted to be treated better than anybody else because he didn't think he was better than anybody else, and then this literal _angel_ comes along and eventually tells him the fate of the world rests in his hands, and because he's spent so much of his life fighting monsters he's never really had faith in God or angels, but then he meets an angel who has such strong faith in _him_, of all people, and this angel believes he can save the world, and he's sort of overwhelmed by it, and at first he just loves the idea of being loved by an angel, but the more time they spend together the more he starts to care about the angel himself, and.." Castiel cuts himself off. He had been so absorbed in his storytelling that he hadn't realized he'd started rambling. He'd gone off on a tangent and it wasn't until, in his excitement, he'd looked to his editor to see if the other man could _feel_ these things the way he could, that he found the editor staring at him with one eyebrow raised and his mouth slightly open. Castiel swallowed thickly and slowly finished his thought, looking down at the floor as he spoke. "And as they both start to care so deeply for each other, and they're trapped in this desolate forest alone, with no one around except each other, their relationship develops to be stronger than any either of them has ever had before."

There was a long period of silence, and Castiel could feel his editor's eyes on him as he continued to stare at his own feet. When he finally got the nerve to look up, Castiel saw the editor had a look of intense fascination painted on his face, and the man slowly smiled as Castiel furrowed his brow.

"Jimmy," the editor said, laying one hand on Castiel's shoulder and pointing at him with the other hand, "You seriously need to 'not put much thought into' your stories more often." The man shook his head, laughing slightly as he lowered himself onto the wheeled chair in front of the desk. "Tell me more!" he enthused, gesturing for Castiel to sit on the bed across from him.

Castiel smiled disbelievingly as he took a seat. "What do you want to know?"


End file.
